Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Len Stevens: Cinema Foyer

Cinema
Foyer will conjure up many happy memories for those of us
old enough to recall 'going to the pictures' before they became multi-screens. I think of the
the State Cinema in Shettleston, Glasgow where I used to go on a Saturday
morning with a variety of other ‘urchins.’ We would pay up our 6d for the
matinee performance of cartoons and ‘B’ films – often about cowboys. The only refreshments
that I can recall were Kia-ora orange juice and Walls ice cream. Politically
incorrect usherettes would clatter some miscreant around the ear if they gave
her cheek. Any love-interest in the films was greeted by embarrassing cat-calls
and whistling. And then a few years later it was back to the cinema with a girl-friend.
Scraping together enough money to go and see The Clockwork Orange (it was a cult film that everyone went see
even if they were under 18) and have a fly, dark rum and blackcurrant in a
little lounge bar beforehand.

Len Stevens, whose full
name was Herbert Leonard Stevens, has contributed a number of light music
classics to the genre including such delightful numbers as Lido Fashion Parade, Hurly
Burly and the less healthy Cigarette
Girl.

Cinema
Foyer is a neatly scored number that initially
presents a quirky little woodwind tune. However things then become a little more
straightforward. There is a sense of innocence about this music that defies the
general tenor of my one-time compatriots. Interestingly Stevens does not introduce a romantic
theme. I am not sure when the piece was
written but the early nineteen-fifties seems like a good bet.

Len Steven’s, delightful
miniature is one of those works that you will find no-one has bothered to
write about. It was composed for use in libraries of sound – in this case Chappell’s
– which would be used for documentaries and newsreels. To my knowledge there is only one version of
this work on CD: The Queen's Hall Light
Orchestra Volume 1 which I believe has now been deleted by Dutton Epoch but is
worth searching out in one of the many MP3 files that are for sale.

Finally, like my
schools and churches in Lanarkshire, the State Cinema was razed to the ground in
our more enlightened era.

About Me

I am well over fifty years old: the end of the run of baby boomers! I was born in Glasgow, moving south to York in the late ‘seventies. I now work in London.
My main interest is British Music from the nineteenth century onwards.
I love the ‘arch-typical’ English countryside – and have always wanted to ‘Go West, Boy’.
A. E. Housman and the ‘Georgian’ poets are a huge influence on my aesthetic. I have spent much of my life looking for the ‘Land of Lost Content’ and only occasionally glimpsed it…somewhere in…???
My recently published work includes essays on Ivor Gurney’s song ‘On Wenlock Edge’ for the Gurney Society Journal, The Music of Marion Scott and a study of Janet Hamilton’s songs for the British Music Society Journal, and the composer Muriel Herbert for the Housman Society.
I have contributed to the journals of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, the Finzi Society, and the Bliss Society, the Berkeley Society, the BMS Newsletter and regular CD reviews for MusicWeb International.